Monday, September 11, 2006

home

Well since my last post I have made it home and this is all that happened.

To finish my brakes, I went to Unique Supply in Redlands and picked up front cylinders and a hose. But when I began to reassemble the brake shoes I couldn't find a pin! The smallest and most worthless piece of the whole brake assembly! I wasn't going to drive back down the mountain to get another so I made one from a nail! ha! It looks shabby but it will hold as well as any of the others!

When I left camp I had barely driven the bug a hundred yards and I planned on driving it 100 miles to Pasadena, but I was getting bad vibes before we reached the bottom of the mountain and decided to take it to Wally's mechanic "Jenks" in Fontana. When I saw Jenks shop I was immediately skeptical, it had all the tools you could want but it was a wreck. The dirt yard around the shop was worse, littered with (a lot of) gaskets, retaining pins, old cylinders, brake drums, and brake shoes. In fact the only trash I saw was piled high with beer cans and bottles! There were a bunch of volkswagens and a sand rail. Jenks wasn't there but talking to the other guys I realized they knew there stuff. I left the bug there and resigned myself... A few days later and a few very brief talks with Jenks I got my bug back.. with a hefty bill. Jenks converted it to 12 volt using my alternator and other parts, he adjusted the brakes, put in new shift linkage, put in larger jets, adjusted the carburetor and set the timing. I was surprised what a great job he did. It was the first time I met Jenks and he was far from what I expected after seeing his shop. He was short-spoken and you could tell he really knew his stuff. He gave me a good laugh because after I had paid him and I left to fill up on gas he called me and said that ARCO gas was crap, which is where I was headed. If I'm ever down in Fontana and need work on my VW I'll definitely give Jenks a call!

1 comment:

can you give an update regarding how your seatelts worked out for you - I just bought a set of OG 67 front belts and like what you did with yours - did you have to destroy the OG belt in order to install the new ones? Can the OG belts be put back on if you ever decided to do that without it effecting the quality of their function?? I am considering doing what you did with yours but wanted to know how they turned out for you..